"When I get in the cockpit, it wraps around me like a second skin," he used to say.

Between his years in the Marine Corps and those as a flight instructor out of John Wayne Airport, Tom spent more than half his life wearing that comfortable "second skin."

He was one day shy of his 84th birthday when he died Oct. 24 at a veterans' home in Chula Vista.

A native of Easton, Pa., Tom joined the Marine Corps in 1939.

During World War II, he was a rear gunner in Navy dive bombers and was shot down, along with his pilot, in the bloody 1943 battles on Tarawa, a series of islets 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.

After fighting overseas, he attended flight school in Wooster, Ohio, and then in Memphis, Tenn., and earned his gold Navy wings in 1946.

As an aircraft commander during the Korean War, according to his official log book, he flew 51 missions in October 1951 and returned from one of them with 178 bullet holes in his F4U Navy Corsair.

He was later decorated for his bravery in both wars.

Shortly before retiring from the Marines after nearly 31 years of service, he was transferred to El Toro Marine Base.

Tom and his first wife, Irma, who died in 1982, lived in Anaheim. They had two children, a daughter who died in infancy and a son who was killed in a motorcycle accident.

After his military service, Tom worked as a private pilot for the philanthropic Harry and Grace Steele Foundation, and helped found the Marine Corps Enlisted Pilots Association.

He also started Lenair Aviation.

He taught aerobatics - in which planes fly straight up, straight down or upside down - and also offered a class to the spouses of pilots so they'd know how to bring a small plane down in case the pilot became disabled mid-air.

Tom was on the short side - about 5-foot-6 - but strong and feisty. He was virtually fearless and was known as a hard-nosed instructor. But those who learned to fly from him received thorough, detailed and unerring training.

There were no gray areas in Tom's world. Things were black, white, right, wrong. Throughout his adult life, he maintained the bearing of a Marine, ramrod straight and at attention, stern and steadfast.

And on time. No one can recall his ever being late.

At the same time, he had a droll sense of humor, passions for fairness and for the underdog, and a deep affection for the Marine Corps. He also had a serious weakness for ice cream.

When he married his second wife, Eva, in 1983, before they settled in Newport Beach he insisted on taking her on an 18-month motorhome trip around the country to meet all his Marine buddies.

Tom exemplified the old saying, "Once a Marine, always a Marine."

His devotion to the Corps and to his military service did not fade with the passage of time.

One day, his wife came home to find Tom lying on the sofa with a large, red blotch on his forehead.

The landing gear on his airplane had failed to descend, he'd flown into the hangar and his plane had caught fire

"Are you OK?" Eva asked.

"I lost my bomber jacket," Tom answered dejectedly.

"Yes," she said, "but did you get hurt?"

Never mind the injuries. Tom just repeated his only lament: "I lost my bomber jacket."

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